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Global warfare: US to intensify military drive into Asia

Nov 18, 2010 12:00 AM

By Rick Rozoff

Barack Obama, the latest rotating Imperator of the first global imperium, will arrive in Lisbon on to receive the plaudits of 27 North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and secure their continued fealty on issues ranging from the war in Afghanistan to a continental interceptor missile system, the continued deployment of American tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, participation in the Pentagon’s cyber warfare plans and expanded military missions in the planet’s south and east.

Perfunctory discussions of minor details notwithstanding, strictly proforma to maintain the myth of NATO being a “military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America,” the banners and pennants of 26 European nations, Canada and dozens of other countries contributing troops for the Afghan mission will be lowered in the presence of the leader of the world imperium.

No fewer than 38 European nations have supplied NATO troops for the Afghanistan-Pakistan war as well as providing training grounds and transport centres to support the war effort. As envisioned for at least a century, through peaceful means or otherwise, Europe has been united, not so much by the EU as under the NATO flag and on the killing fields of Afghanistan. It is now relegated to the role of pre-deployment training area and forward operating base for military campaigns downrange: The Middle East, Africa and Asia.

So uncritically and unquestioningly compliant has Europe been in the above regards that Obama and the governing elite in the imperial metropolis as a whole have already looked beyond the continent for additional military partners.

With the exception of fellow members of the NATO Quint – Britain, Germany, France and Italy (Britain more and Italy less than the others) – Alliance partners are accorded the same status and assigned the same functions as American territories like Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands: Geopolitically convenient locations for live-fire military training and for troop, war-plane and warship deployments.

Two millennia ago the Pax Romana of Augustus brought roads and ports, aqueducts and irrigation, amphitheatres and libraries, and Greek writers from Aristotle to Aeschylus to occupied territories. Bellum Americanum burdens its vassals and tributaries with military bases, interceptor missile batteries, McDonald’s and Lady Gaga.

In Lisbon Obama will chastise his NATO and NATO partnership auxiliaries and foederati, as is the prerogative and wont of the global suzerain and as his predecessor George W. Bush has done recently, for being chary of expending more blood and treasure for the war in Afghanistan.

However, he will also display the magnanimity befitting his pre-eminent stature by patting his European satraps on their bowed heads and intoning, “Well done, good and faithful servants. You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”

With the European continent placed securely under the multi-circled Achilles shield of NATO, US nuclear weapons, an interceptor missile system and a cyber warfare command, Washington is moving to realms as yet not completely subjugated

Africa has been assigned to the three-year-old US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and perhaps only five of the continent’s 54 nations – Eritrea, Libya, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe – have avoided becoming ensnared in bilateral military ties with the Pentagon and concomitant US led military exercises and deployments. The US has also expanded its military presence in the Middle East: Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Yemen.

Two years ago Washington reactivated its Fourth Fleet for the Caribbean Sea and Central and South America and last year’s coup in Honduras and this September’s attempted coup in Ecuador are proof that the US will not allow developments in Latin America to pursue their natural course unimpeded.

The US has intensified efforts to forge and expand military alliances and deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, but there is still a small handful of countries there not willing to accept a subordinate role in American geostrategic designs. They are, to varying degrees and in differing manners, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Myanmar.

Attempts to replicate the “color revolution” model used in former Soviet republics in Myanmar and Iran since 2007 have failed, “regime change” plans for North Korea are of another nature, and neither China nor Russia appears immediately susceptible to equivalents of the so-called Rose, Orange, Tulip and Twitter revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova, respectively. The preferred technique being applied to Russia at the moment is cooption, though its success is not guaranteed as the US and NATO military build-up around Russia’s borders continues unabated.

What’s left is the military expedient. In the first half of November 2010 the quadrivium in charge of US foreign policy – President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen – all toured the Asia-Pacific area. Collectively they visited ten nations there: India, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.

Clinton and Gates were in Malaysia at separate times and both joined Mullen for the annual Australia-US Ministerial (AUSMIN) meeting in Melbourne, where the US military chief called the 21st century the “Pacific century.” [1]

In India Obama secured what William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, estimated to be the 6th largest arms deal in US history. [2]

In Australia, Gates and Mullen won a backroom arrangement to move US military forces into several Australian bases.While in New Zealand, Clinton in effect renewed the Australia, New Zealand, US (ANZUS) Security Treaty as a full tripartite mutual defence pact after a 24-year hiatus in regard to her host country.

On November 13 2010, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan “thanked the US…for supporting Tokyo in a series of recent disputes with Russia and China” [3], an allusion to a statement by Clinton on October 27 2010, that the US would honor its military assistance commitment to Tokyo over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute with China and her spokesman Philip Crowley’s affront to Russia 5 days afterwards over the Kuril Islands, which he identified as Japanese territory. [4]

In a tete-a-tete ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Yokohama, the Japanese head of state “sought US President Barack Obama’s assurance on defence in the Asia-Pacific region,” as “Tokyo’s territorial disputes with China and Russia are becoming high priorities for Kan, who told Obama through a translator, ‘The US military presence is only becoming more important.’” [5]

Verbatim, Kan said:“Japan and the US, at this meeting of APEC, of pan-Pacific countries, we shall step up our cooperation. So we agreed on doing that. And in Japan’s relations with China and Russia, recently we’ve faced some problems, and the US has supported Japan throughout, so I expressed my appreciation to him for that.“For the peace and security of the countries in the region, the presence of the US and the presence of the US military I believe is becoming only increasingly important.” [6]

In return, Obama “voiced support for Japan to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council and reaffirmed the US-Japan security alliance.” He also assured Kan that the US-Japan alliance is “the cornerstone of American strategic engagement in the Asia Pacific” and “the commitment of the US to the defence of Japan is unshakable.

According to a US armed forces publication, “While Obama’s support for the continuing security alliance is no surprise, it comes amid tension in Japan over China’s…claims on territory in the East China and South China seas.” [7]

In less than 5 months the Pentagon has made its military presence felt throughout the Asia-Pacific area:

The US Marine Corps and Navy participated in Exercise Crocodile 10 in East Timor (Timor-Leste) from June 19-26, which included “weapons firing skills, amphibious assault serials, jungle training, flying operations, and a helicopter raid on an abandoned prison” and provided “an opportunity for multi-national forces to work together in the planning and conduct of a complex military exercise.” [8]

In October of 2009 2,500 US and Australian troops engaged in maneuvers in the country, which marked the first US-East Timor joint military exercise.

This July 2010 the US led the multinational Angkor Sentinel 2010 command post and field exercises in Cambodia with American forces and troops from the host nation, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia and the Philippines.

For 40 days during 2010, the US led the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010 war games in the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii with 32 ships, 5 submarines, more than 170 planes and 20,000 troops from all four branches of the American armed forces and from Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.

From July 25-28 2010 the US conducted joint war games with South Korea, codenamed Invincible Spirit, in the Sea of Japan/East Sea with the involvement of 20 warships including the nuclear-powered super-carrier US George Washington, 200 war-planes including F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, and 8,000 troops.

One month after, US Pacific Command and US Army Pacific presided over the Khaan Quest 2010 military exercise in Mongolia. In the same time American and British troops ran the Steppe Eagle 2010 NATO Partnership for Peace exercise in Kazakhstan.

US George Washington and the US John S. McCain destroyer led the first-ever joint US-Vietnam military exercise, consisting of naval manoeuvres in the South China Sea in early August 2010.

Less than a week later the US and South Korea began this year’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercise in the latter country with 30,000 US and 50,000 South Korean troops participating. [9]

In early September 2010 Washington and Seoul held an anti-submarine warfare exercise in the Yellow Sea.

At the end of the same month Indian troops joined US marines and sailors in Exercise Habu Nag 2010, the fifth annual bilateral US-India amphibious training exercise with that codename, in the East China Sea off the coast of Okinawa.

In October 2010 at least 3,000 US troops participated in the 9-day Amphibious Landing Exercise 2011 in the Philippines. “The bilateral training exercise, conducted with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, is designed to improve interoperability, increase readiness and continue to build professional relationships between the two countries.” [10]

At the beginning of October 2011 US warships and troops joined 6,000 Australian soldiers and counterparts from New Zealand for Exercise Hamel in north-east Australia, described in the local press as “massive war games.” [11] Also in October, South Korea for the first time hosted a multinational military exercise with 14 members of the US-created Proliferation Security Initiative, which included ships and military personnel from the US, Canada, France, Australia and Japan.

US marines “conducted urban training exercises” in Singapore on November 6, 2010. A Marine Corps lieutenant present “gave a short class on identifying danger areas in a combat environment” and “talked about isolating them by sight, or suppressive fire, and the importance of gaining footholds in enemy territories.” [12]

On November 14, 2010 the US and Indian armies completed the 14-day Yudh Abhyas 2010 military exercise in Alaska. Last year’s Yudh Abhyas featured the largest US-India joint military maneuvers ever held.

100,000 American and another 50,000 NATO troops are fighting in the 10th year of their collective war in Afghanistan. The US is escalating deadly drone missile strikes and NATO is increasing helicopter gunship raids in Pakistan.

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